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Gamespot has the news that the much anticipated driving simulator Gran Turismo 4 releases on February 22nd in the U.S., while European drivers will be able to purchase the game on March 9th. From the article: "Before it finally launched in Japan on December 28, the much-lauded driving game had experienced delays of more than a year. Gran Turismo 4 will feature more than 700 automobiles from more than 80 manufacturers racing across new locales--including the city streets of the Big Apple and Las Vegas. Consistent with the series, drivers will compete in races to acquire various licenses and move up in the ranks. Unfortunately, the game will not include an online mode."

and still no online... Any word on when the online version is coming out? They delayed this game over 2 years, you'd think they would have SOME kind of online mode in there. Is choosing different angles on replays ("B-Spec mode") really as important to a game experience as going online in it?

If it makes you feel any better, I'm in the exact same boat and the load times are driving me over to the Gamecube more and more. I did see a picture of a Silver slim PS2, so I'd buy that to go with the Platium Gamecube.

I haven't played Gran Turismo myself -- I'm not a big racing fan -- but what is it that sets it apart from other racing games?

Personally I'd rather race around Liberty City or Vice City from the Gran Theft Auto games. I like the sense of freedom (and getting away from the cops) rather than the closed tracks of racing games. But what is it about the Gran Turismo series that's so great? All racing games are pretty much alike in my (admittedly somewhat ignorant) opinion.

First off, I don't want to say "it's very realistic" because I will get annihilated, so I'll stay away from that word.

Instead, I'll say this: the steering system is a lot more involved. You can feel an actual difference in steering between cars with front and rear wheel drive. You can't just run every race by flooring the pedal and bouncing off of walls in strategic ways. Very detailed car data and the like. The cars look beautiful, especially during replays and have a lot of freedom for internal customization.

Honestly, though? I think the game mostly feeds on people's Pokemon "gotta catch them all" obsessions.

A lot of the time is spent not enjoying the races, but saving up for other cars which will let you enjoy the races. Even when you get the new car you are saving up for modifications that will further let you enjoy the car. After you get to that point the money you are making isn't enough and you go on to saving for the next best car.

After the cycle of wanting the best car ever is over, it's on to beating the game 100% and trying to get the best results on the license tests. The license tests basically let you run a part of the track in a certain vehicle in under a certain length of time. For example "ride your Porsche 911 through this S-turn in 11.7 seconds for bronze, 11.598 seconds for silver, 11.515 seconds for gold."

What I would be interested in seeing is how many people play the game for fun AFTER they've beaten the game 100% and acquired what they believe is the best car. ie: how many people play it for the sheer fun of it like someone would play Robotron or replay a Zelda game.

If you look at the FAQs you can see some signs of this. There are FAQs dedicated to showing you how to beat endurance races (some lasting 2+ hours) without you having to touch the joystick.

On the note of replayability, I would like to add that in GT3 I found a couple ways to make it fun.

I played against friends.

I pretended I was in Initial D with a 86.

And I figured out how to trick a car out to make drifting fun and easy. (Take a car, get it to about 300-500 hp depending on weight, turn off ACM and TCS all the way, and put on simulation tires. Go nuts)

At first, playing the game was fun to me. I played it for the sake of racing. Towards the end it started getting rediculous though. By the time you get to the professionaly series of races you're doing 20 lap races on tracks you've already raced on countless times. They seem to be throwing the same races at you with slightly different rules and calling it something else just to make the game longer. By that time I wasn't playing for the sake of racing anymore. I was playing for the sake of collecting cars a

The Gran Turismo games really focus on accurate driving physics. Of course, the cars are indestructible which sort of throws a wrench in the accuracy. The GT games also focus on accurate upgrades to the cars. You can trick out your cars with all kinds of add-ons and such, not all of them will increase the car's performance either. The GT games are for gear heads and real race enthusiasts.

The GTA games are more hedonistic in tone.

For me, I could never get around the indestructible cars. It spoils the game, IMO. I know many people really enjoy the game, but for me the cars should have damage modelling. By focusing on reality physics the skills of driving are highlighted. This is cool, but cornering can also involve ricochets off of other cars, as a perfectly valid race technique (in game). This is totally outside the idea of simulation that the games attempts to acheive. And, for me, it spoils it.

I understand the reason for it. The auto makers want there cars to look great in the game. But I'm not so sure that damage modelling would adversely effect the marketing aspect of the car licensing.

Yeah, I can see how the driving physics are really accurate, what with most cars in real life being driven with a tiny toothpick size analog stick.

My brother has a PS2. I was thinking about buying GT4 and having him bring his box over, but I just don't think I could get into a game that has PS2-quality graphics, is played with a silly console controller and I definitely can't get around the "indestructable cars".

I mean, really - do you need to market your cars as "indestructable at 300mph"? That's pretty

This is the classic racing game debate. All viewpoints are valid to me. What everyone should ask themselves...what do I want in a racing game?
If you want damage(be carefull....are you sure?), I'm sure the lines you're using through the corners are damaging your performance more than you realize.;)
I see a contradiction in the damage(lack of)fault some claim they can't overlook. Are you saying you want to run into walls, other cars(which is actually slowing you down(the bad slowing down)) AND drive 300

Indestructable cars are mandated by car manufacturers. Every racing game (perhaps excluding a few single marque titles?) has either licenced recognisable cars with no damage, or fictional cars with damage. Blame the auto industry for this, not the makers of GT4. The same also applies to cars rolling over - in all the Gran Turismo games, you can tilt a car to 89.9999 degrees but no further, the manufacturers will not allow their cars to be shown flipping over.

Indestructable cars are mandated by car manufacturers. Every racing game (perhaps excluding a few single marque titles?) has either licenced recognisable cars with no damage, or fictional cars with damage.

this isn't true. The Test Drive series offered crashable versions of real cars, and Need For Speed: Porsche Unleashed provided a very realistic body damage model. in fact, there have been a lot of games with real licensed cars that took damage. i think the GT people keep saying "it's the manufacturers

Arggh. After the creator himself said the reason cars were indestructible was that for that to happen Polyphony would have to reprogram the basic physics of cars, NOT because the makers don't want their cars to break down. RTFM we always say, but you still don't care.

I find it interesting that Sony is already talking [gamespot.com] about Gran Turismo 5, which might include damage models.

It's almost as if they have everything planned ahead of time, but they're holding out so they can sell each innovation piece-by-piece, in an overall quest to make more money.

If I were to be very cynical, I'd say they'll release Gran Turismo 5 with online play, but hold out on damage models until Gran Turismo 6. However, I'm not "very cynical", so I say that this scenario is (hopefully) unlikely. Be

An interesting theory about GT5 being the 'killer app' for PS3's. I had not considered that. It all may depend on how well gt4 sells. If they feel that the market for the series is dwindling, they may look elsewhere for the 'next must-have game'. It is interesting that there is really no 'killer app' on PS2 right now. The only candidate, I think, would be GTA:SA, and that is going to be ported to XBox and PC eventually. Halo2 is clearly the flagship for the XBox and we all know it isn't coming to PS2.

GT3 was going to be the PS2's killer app, back when it was called GT2000. There's an official demo floating around and I think the date was set for between the Japanese (03/2000) and North American (10/2002) launches.

But the Delay Demons got ahold of the team and it didn't come out until much later.

In a strange way, it seems each PlayStation generation is destined for two GT's, as Sony states GT4 is the last full GT on PS2.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect GT5 to be PS3's crown jewel, but they need to

I agree 100%. I think gran turismo would be one of the ultimate racing games ever if it could include damage modeling so you could not play bumpper cars around corners.

Still, if you have a friend who is into racing games, the head to head can lead to some very great races and replays, given you can both stay on the track and race, and agree to avoid trying to hit each other.

Gran turmismo just feels right when you steer the cars. There really is no other way to explain it except, right. It's probably not r

Having good opponents makes all the difference in the world. Only 2-3 of my friends are as into the GT series as I am, and they're the only people I enjoy racing. 99% of the time we try to have for a clean race, but occasionally it is exciting and fun to try and take each other out, as it leads to some vicous battles.

For real physics, real damage, and real fun (and real cheap), there are some great older racing games.

Anything made by Papyrus. Personally, my 2 favorites are Nascar Legends and Grand Prix Legends (now a free download from Blackhole motorsports). GPL has better physics, but NL lets you drive the old rear wheel drive boats that many of us grew up driving. Also, both games work great on old 300mhz systems that have a 3d card of any sort. Heck, GPL still has a HUGE following and is considered to be one o

For me, I could never get around the indestructible cars. It spoils the game, IMO.

Really? I always though that the game was better for not modeling damage. It's a driving simulation that lets you focus on the driving itself, rather than the repercusions of failure if you take a turn too fast.

For the purposes of the game, compare slaming to a full stop and having to regain 12 seconds to an automatic disqualification; the first is still a penalty for my mistake, but I can learn from it and immediately get

Perhaps a hybrid of our arguments would make the game the most 'playable'. That is, model the cars damage, however, make it more of a cosmetic thing rather than affecting the handling of the car (unless the car is rammed head-on into the wall of a tunnel). What I mean is this, model the effects of a sideswipe with another car as cosmetic (requiring a fix after the race) but do not stop the race.

Yeah, I think that would be okay. You'd have to balance the game's rewards (credits won) to account for the fact that you now have repair in addition to maintenance, but I think that could be done without too much difficulty. Otherwise, I'm fine with the car looking banged-up after I smash it into guard rails and whatnot. I might still disagree with stopping the race for a head-on into the wall of a tunnel, but at this point we understand each other.

I enjoyed GT3 and I plan on buying GT4 when it comes out. For me, it's really down to eye candy. Sure I like passing cars and winning races, especially the Rally ones. But for me what keeps me coming back for more is the amazing graphics. The reflection of clouds and trees on an Aston Martin or the glare of the sun off a windshield. The graphics are what keep me interested after I've bought the cars, etc.
-Troy

Beyond what everyone else is saying about the driving feel of all the cars being similar to their real life counterparts, the thing I like about the GT franchise is the rediculous detail set to tuning cars. As a car junky myself in real life, its amazing to me that I can change a cars gear ratios to a 3rd decimal place with just a couple clicks, see what it does to the car, and then adjust again. Adjusting for aerodynamics and speed isn't just "put this bad ass spoiler on it" or "the magic scoop" like mos

I'm a huge racing fan and I've played Gran Turismo 3 through to 100% completion. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what sets this game apart from other racing games. After playing this game, other racing games just feel cheap to me. Especially if you've played GT3 with the Logitech force feedback steering wheel. Except for Colin McRae Rally 2005 which is a much better rally experience than the rally mode in GT3. I think a lot of it has to do with the excellent car handling, sound, and the overall presentation (

There is a lan option, according to the gran turismo 4 [playstation.com] web site, and on the xlink kai [teamxlink.co.uk] site they list gran turismo 4 as being supported. Basically, this is tunneling software that let's you play the LAN mode over the internet.

Talking with an EB games staffer (and GT fan), I heard there's an online version of GT4 slated for later in the year. While it's unclear whether it'd require you to own the non-online version of GT4 to play online (I'm guessing probably not), apparently it'll let you import your non-online GT4 data into the new version.
Why would anyone want to buy the February version of GT4, then? Well, given that most of the modifications you can perform on your cars (and the cars themselves) aren't obtainable until you put many hours into play, this means that folks with the older GT4 will be hopping online with tricked-out rides while those just buying the online version would be racing stock cars. This won't make a difference in the long-term, but that would certainly suck for new adopters for the first couple of months.
Sega GT did a similar thing, releasing an online version after the non-online game had been on sale for a long time, so even though this is hearsay, I'd be biased towards believing it. Not that this is necessarily a winning marketing strategy...

I have no interest in online racing. The lag would make it less than fun. I can only imagine what sort of thing the people who brought you "bunny hopping" would bring to internet racing. LAN racing, on the other hand, would be interesting.

1)Release single player version of game people were almost positive would have online gameplay.2)Release "expansion" with online gameplay for full price or half price for existing owners.3)???4)PROFIT!!!

With every new Gran Turismo relase I get caught up in the hype. I somehow forgot that I find that series overly complicated and too involved for my gaming habits. It's like I go brain dead the week of the release and go buy the game. I get home, start playing and yell "son of a bitch!".

Agreed. My gaming habits are quite fulfilled with Burnout (2|3), with the occasional foray into Need for Speed Underground when I want some career play. NfSU 2 is pretty cool as well, with all the customizations you can do that, in the end, don't seem to make all that much difference, since the AI is evidently doing exactly the same customizations. Meh. The online play is fun though.

I'll probably get modded down as flamebait, but I'm no longer looking forward to GT4. It's been hyped for so long, but delayed several times, and had features taken out. This is getting old for me. I've already moved on.

Am I the only one who doesn't get terribly excited about online gaming? I'd much rather play a game with a friend who's in the same room, than someone I've never met from some place I've never heard of.

The exception would be playing a multiplayer game with a friend over the internet, but I don't consider that to be "online gaming", no different than playing over a LAN (except the physical location, of course).

I loved all the other gran turismo's but GT3 sucked IMO because suddenly midway through the simulation mode, tire wear came into play...ok that's fair real life car racing needs to take into account tires. But even if you had "medium slick" tires, which were about the bare minimum to simply keep up with cars less powerful then you, they would be glowing red by the 4th lap of a 10 lap race. This means the car is undrivable and you need a pit stop. This is NOT realistic! Gran Touring type races, especiall

This is part of the realism. True, you don't melt tires in a few laps, but, part of racing is tire choice. You have something like 6 different compounds of slicks to choose from. Depending on your course, you might like having a harder compound. It may also depend on the car.

I was racing the Mercedes DTA car for a little while and found it was just barely losing races. I had the medium slicks on there. Then, I switched to hard, was able to run an entire race on a single set, and took the lead usually